HOW MANY DEATHS WILL IT TAKE...? PART 6

From Eric Reitan at Religious Dispatches:

More often than not, conservatives represent the internal Christian debate over the ethics of homosexuality as if it were between those who hold firm to traditional Christian values and those who have sold out to secular culture. But this way of framing the debate ignores the real motivations of progressive Christians like myself—motivations that spring from real human tragedies.

The other day a young gay man in Oklahoma took his own life. This is not a new or even an unusual occurrence, although it comes in the wake of a string of highly publicized suicides by young gay men, suicides blamed on bullying. But Zach Harrington’s suicide last week highlights the fact that for sexual minorities in America, the problem runs much deeper than overt bullying, at least as that term is ordinarily understood.

Zach attended a city council meeting in Norman, Oklahoma, during which three hours were given to the public to express their views as to whether GLTB History Month should be recognized. In the end, the proclamation was approved, but the debate:

...became an occasion for those with the most hateful views to be handed a microphone and afforded the chance to tell the community just how sick, sinful, perverted, and disgusting their gay and lesbian neighbors are. According to the Tulsa World report, Harrington’s father “said he feels his son may have glimpsed a hard reality at the Sept. 28 council meeting, a place where the same sentiments that quietly tormented him in high school were being shouted out and applauded by adults the same age as his own parents.”

There you are. The bigotry and hatefulness goes beyond the school years, which is no surprise. Why would we be surprised that some LGTB persons:

...internalize this condemnation. They accept the message that their deepest impulse towards love and intimacy is an affront to God. And since that impulse is an ineradicable feature of who they are, some come to see their very existence as a blight on the world.
....

Sometimes this sense of isolation and rejection can be almost too much to bear, and all it takes is a final gesture of denunciation or scorn to spark an act of self-obliteration.
....

Jesus said that we should distinguish true and false teachings by their fruits. And the teaching that homosexuality is a sin—that, in the words of the Southern Baptist Convention, even the desire for homosexual sex is “always sinful, impure, degrading, shameful, unnatural, indecent and perverted”—this is a teaching that time and again has born poisonous fruits. The shattered promise of Zach Harrington’s life is just one more example in a painful litany.
....

Any theory of the Bible that requires me to ignore my neighbors in favor of teasing out the correct meaning of Romans 1:24-27 seems to do an injustice to the Bible’s heart. If there’s a core message to the Christian Scriptures, it’s that Jesus—a person, not a book—is the fundamental revelation of God. It’s Jesus that John’s Gospel calls the “Word of God,” not the Bible. And in the Gospels, not only does Jesus say nothing about homosexuality, but He is recorded as saying that He comes to us in the form of the neighbor in need—“even the least of these” (Matthew 25:37-40).

I'm going far beyond fair use of another's words, but the essay says so much that is right and true that it's difficult to stop quoting Eric Reitan's words. I urge you to read the entire essay.

But can you really have the right theory about a book if the book teaches you to love your neighbors as yourselves, but your theory about it demands that you stifle the character traits most intimately associated with love? If your theory about the Bible leads you to ignore or refuse to hear the suffering cries of your gay and lesbian neighbors, wouldn’t that be a reason to rethink your theory? Put more forcefully, how many gays and lesbians, crushed by the weight of anti-gay teachings, have to kill themselves before we decide that, just maybe, our theory about the Bible isn’t the best fit with the idea that God is love—and hence isn’t the best fit with the content of the Bible itself?

So what then do we do? We take note and honor those who have died by trying to save GLTB young people and adults from being driven to such desperation that they decide to end their lives. We publicize such organizations as The Trevor Project, which offer help to those who feel there is no hope for productive, happy, and fulfilling lives.

Chris Colfer shares a very personal message for LGBTQ youth in response to the recent suicides that have occurred: "I know what it's like to be bullied and teased every single day and I know that it may seem like there is no chance of happiness left. But I promise you, there is a world full of acceptance and love just waiting for you to find it. So please before you take a drastic action that could be your last, call The Trevor Project."

Just this morning, I told one of my readers, Jerry, that I couldn't write any more about gay suicides, that after Matthew Shepherd's anniversary yesterday, I was empty, that I had no more words for the heartbreaking stories, and here I am a couple of hours later writing again. I want not to write any more of these stories. I want the numbers on the "How Many Deaths Will It Take...?" series of posts to stop increasing, because the deaths stop. That's what I want.

Thanks to Cathy for the link.